Jim’s mother was born in Pontiac Michigan but her family drove across country to San Diego sometime in the early 1920’s as her younger sister Clela was born in San Diego in 1925. Jim remembers visiting his grandparents Fuller and their oldest son Robert at their home on Ohio Street in the North Park section of San Diego. He was there numerous times from the 50’s through the early 70’s. One of Jim’s reasons for choosing San Diego this winter was to explore his maternal roots.
This is the neighborhood where Jim’s maternal grandparents lived. It is now a trendy, hipster, young professional area.
Their cute little bungalow home below was replaced with a multi dwelling apartment building.Home of Jim’s maternal grandparents from the 1920’s or 30’s to the early 70’s. 4656 Ohio Street.Cloyd and Grace Fuller. Jim’s maternal grandparents.After doing just a little bit of online research at https://www.findagrave.com Jim came up with the location of the gravesites of both of his grandparents in the Mt. Hope Cemetery. Clicking on the map link on the site brought us right to his grandfathers tombstone.Not so easy with his grandmother’s gravesite. After a lot of searching we went to the cemetary office and they gave us this map with the names of surrounding headstones. With that we were able to localize the grave which was covered in grass. We asked a groundskeeper to help and voilá, he uncovered it.
Sandy then felt that we should go out and find some flowers and flags to put on the graves. We were unable to find flags but we did find flowers .Interesting that they are not next to one another but are separated by three rows and multiple other gravesites. Jim attended both of their funerals.Next day we drive to El Camino Memorial to find Jim’s Uncle Bob’s burial site.
We found this headstone fairly easily and then cleaned it up a bit.We came prepared with flowers this time.This is the view from Robert Fuller’s gravesite.The trip to Uncle Bob’s gravesite was January 30. On February 2 we were notified by our cousin once removed, Bri Gomez, that her mother Evelyn had died. Evelyn is Jim’s first cousin on his maternal side. The picture above shows Evelyn on the left next to Joe Scott, a son of Robert Fuller and Evelyn’s older sister Sylvia next to Jim. This picture was taken at Joe’s home in Oakland in 2017.This is Robert Fuller with his wife Becky and their two sons, Robert junior and Joe.Evelyn’s three offspring announced a memorial service for her on February 10 in Buckeye Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. We decided to drive to Phoenix as we have friends there who have been trying to get us there for years.Jim does all of the driving now but we stop every hour and walk around.This picture was taken at about 80 mph.We stayed at the home of our friends Ginny and Ed. This is their backyard.A golf fairway behind their house. The fairways are actually painted or dyed green.
Friday night before the Saturday afternoon memorial service we were texting with our sister-in-law Donna Steen when she suddenly came up with the idea that she wanted to come to Phoenix for the memorial service and to see her brother Verlin who lives in Surprise, another suburb of Phoenix. She awoke Jim’s brother Claude at 10pm and he agreed to the plan. They took a flight from Raleigh-Durham to Denver and another from Denver to Phoenix and landed in Phoenix at 12:30pm in spite of an hour delay in Denver for de-icing. We picked them up at the airport and showed up at the very informal memorial service just a little late.
Left to right: Evelyn’s oldest son David, Claude, Donna, Sandy, Jim, Evelyn’s younger son Ben and her daughter Bri.
We spent most of the afternoon with Evelyn’s extended family and friends, taking no pictures. We then drove Jim’s brother Claude and his wife Donna to Surprise and spent the evening with Donna’s brother Verlin and his wife Janice. A lovely day spent with family. We regret no photos of them.
Sunday we had brunch in Scottsdale and then did a small hike with our friends Ginny and Ed who live at their Arizona home for 6 months in the winter and their New Hampshire home for 6 months in the spring and summer.A rock climber on top of the rock.
We spent Super Bowl Sunday with Ginny and Ed enjoying the game together.
Our only picture together as we were leaving Monday morning.Tuesday morning we made the six hour trek back to San Diego.North Algodones Dunes Wilderness area. This goes on for miles.
Death is inevitable for all of us, not to be avoided but we feel like we celebrated those who have gone before us and all of them connected to each other by Jim’s maternal roots. Another very different experience for us in our ongoing journey.
What a wonderful experience honoring family and being in places of history that made you you. I had forgotten that Verlin was Donna’s younger brother. What yravelors ya’ll are. Kathleen
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